Control not possible for an NFL head coach

December 2, 2013 - Paul Giannamore

This past weekend was the first real football watching I’ve done all season. I I still cannot get fully into the Steelers, for reasons I’ve gone on at length about in past posts here and on Facebook and for which I get beat up a lot by my “friends” who see no further than the end of the football.

But in watching the Steelers fall further below .500 Thursday night, I was infuriated, and not by the game’s outcome, but by attitude.

This was, going into the game, a team below .500 that still miraculously has some kind if ridiculous shot at the playoffs because the AFC stinks. So what were we treated to? A workmanlike blue-collar performance?

Nah. We were treated to the spectacle of wide receivers doing the dance of joy every time they caught a ball for a first down. We were treated to guys doing the dance of joy for scoring a touchdown when the below .500 team was behind by a substantial margin.

You're below .500, you got nothing to dance about, especially when you're also behind in the game. Period.

And when the game was on the line, instead of rising to the occasion, one of the dancing first-down wide receivers (I’m talking to you, Mr. Sanders) didn’t catch the ball.

My solution, if I had the reins of the team, would be laps. Lots and lots of laps.

But then, laps are not going to be permitted to be heaped upon zillion-dollar athletes on a below .500 football team. It’s in the contract, I’m sure.

And so, I’m left wondering. Just what is left for a coach to do in the NFL when the athletes are in it for themselves?

Nothing.

Being an NFL coach has to completely, absolutely suck because while you’re the boss on paper, it only works if the rich self-absorbed young men who supposedly work for you actually give a darn about something other than their own self-aggrandizement.

I do not envy Mike Tomlin in the least, though I surely love the cat-that-ate-the-canary grin after the, um, on-field oops play. One cool cat, that coach.